Free Cityville Guide!

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Free cityville guide
The Basics

When you start playing Cityville from the very beginning, its is wise to arm yourself with a decent Cityville guide that can help you get started on the right foot, like the one im providing for free below.


To begin with it's rather difficult to estimate precisely how to balance the gameplay so your City runs smoothly and with efficiency, so you get a decent regular advancement in game levelling.



Neighbours


The first crucial factor like any Zynga social game, is the actual amount of neighbours you possess, without neighbours you cannot unlock certain buildings or unlock certain job quests and more significantly you can't gain additional goods, gold coins or XP points. Having lots of neighbours gives you a massive advantage in the amount of energy you can obtain. Everyday you can visit each of your neighbours cities and do upto 5 jobs in each, one of the major benefits is you obtain 1 Energy point for each neighbour you visit every day. So if you had say 100 Cityville neighbours, once you had visited all their cities you would have 100 energy points to use in your own city plus lots of gold coins and goods. And the other great thing about Cityville at the moment is, that these energy points will still be there tommorrow for you to use and do not disappear like they do in other Zynga games.


The most effective way to acquire neighbours is to place add me requests on the varied Cityville associated pages on Facebook (Add Cityville Neighbours), performing this once or twice a day will bring you loads of Cityville playing friends.

Gold Coins


The next important factor is you require Gold Coins to purchase storage buildings, plant crops, build households, add decorations,building shipping, build community buildings and send out the train from the station to pick up and return much called for goods. To bring in Gold coins you need to construct houses to collect rent, businesses to bring in revenue, community buildings for taxes, a large supply of goods so you can sell to neighbour via the train, neighbours to visit to accumulate rent from businesses and homes and collect XP and gold coin bonuses, plus gain gold coins from the bonus bar while accumulating revenue in your city.


Goods


The third significant factor is goods, without goods you cannot supply your businesses, if your businesses are not supplied with goods then your gold coin revenue will just about dry up and you'll discover the game will stagnate and levelling up will become a good deal more difficult. To acquire goods for your businesses, you first of all require to build satisfactory sized storage buildings such as silos or barns for example to store all the goods in. And then you'll be able to plant crops and wait for them to mature and harvest them to acquire goods, send your train off to accumulate goods at a toll of gold coins, send ships off from your docks to far off ports to collect goods, and visit your neighbours and harvest their crops to earn 15 goods for each crop harvested.


Population


The fourth fundamental factor is the actual population of the city, without a sufficient amount of citizens, your businesses will slowly bring in business revenue, XP points and special items for collections. So constructing the correct number of housing in ratio to the quantity of businesses you have, will raise gold coin revenue and XP points at lightening speed. But to expand the population threshold you need to build community buildings such as the town hall or museum, and you will also need to employ neighbours within these community buildings to successfully complete them.


Energy


The fifth important factor is necessary in all Zynga social games and that's the actual energy to do the various job tasks, without energy you cannot do anything within the Cityville game. So starting your Cityville gaming session with a complete energy bar or by visiting each and every one of your Cityville neighbours, to gain essential energy is the most crucial part to playing Cityville.


Expansion


The final crucial factor is a must for the progress of your city and encompasses all previous mentioned factors when playing Cityville, and that factor is the expansion of your city. Expansion allows you to build more housing, businesses, community buildings and farming land for growing and harvesting crops. Each expansion costs 20000 gold coins and is a 12 x 12 square which you place over and click on any part of the landscape your city doesnt already own, you also need neighbours to obtain the necessary zoning permits to expand your city.

Business Layouts For More Gold Coins 

HQ Business Square

Maximizing Gold Coin earnings on Cityville through your array of businesses, can be earned in two essential ways and it is entirely dependant on where you place two primary construction types, namely your businesses and the addition of the various decorations available.


First off you should always make sure your businesses are connected to a road, if they are not connected to a road then the business will receive no customers. The best way of using and placing your business headquarters (as displayed in the HQ business square diagram to the right), is to place your business HQ in the middle with your businesses placed round the outside and finally the road round the outside of the businesses.


The reason for this is quite clear to you when you try to place the businesses around your HQ, you will see different bonuses ratios in percentages such as 4%(22%), the 4% is the bonus gold coins that individual decoration would bring to the business revenue, and the 22% in brackets is the bonus gold that decoration and other decorations near by, will add to the business revenue,


You will receive these extra amount of gold coins as a bonus, each time you collect business revenue, just because you have placed the HQ so near to your businesses.

HQ Business Square Example 

This above picture is an actual HQ Business Square i use while playing Cityville to help me collect more gold coins in revenue from my businesses. Notice while in the middle of placing my HQ you can see the bonus ratios, which indicate how much more gold coins, you will gain everytime you collect business revenue.


This is a very poor way to earn extra gold coins from your businesses, but is certainly the best way to utilize the Business Headquarters.

Decoration Business Square

Of cause at the beginning of playing Cityville you will essentially only have one business HQ, but alas there is another way of gaining extra bonus ratios and that is by instead of placing an HQ in the middle of the business square, you would simply place decorations such as benches, trees or even the arboretum.


Just by placing your businesses in this sort of fashion you will receive lots more gold coins and XP points, each time you collect revenue from your businesses, so if you are a person who likes to level up quickly and have enough gold coins to spend on the brand new unlocked buildings etc, then this business model is for you.

Decoration Business Square Example 

This above picture is an actual Decoration Business Square i currently use while playing Cityville to give me more additional bonus gold coins when collecting business revenue from my businesses. You get 16% extra gold coin bonus, just from placing the arboretum in the middle of the business square.

Another Business Square Method 

Business Square With Shady Trees, Sidewalk & Arboretum

The above business square layout shows my own personal technique for producing even more gold coins, xp points and special items from the businesses within my city. To place this type of business square layout. i would start by clearing a large space in your city, then start off placing the aboretum roughly in the middle of the space, next place the businesses you want in a 4 business by 4 business frame around the arboretum, then place a single or double sidewalk around the businesses with one sidewalk connected to the road (or your business won't open for business), then place the trees all around the outside of the sidewalk, and if you wish place the road round the outside of the trees. Using this method will earn you between 25 and 30% in extra revenue from your businesses. You can also you this technique while placing your housing if you so wish.

Placing Houses With Decorations For More Gold Coins 

Decorative Housing Square

There are dozens of different types of households to purchase and place in Cityville, all with variable costs to build and also more significantly variable amounts of rent that you are able to collect, along with time-scales of when the rent can actually be gathered.

To always acquire the highest amount of money in rent from your city's households, it is extremely advantageous to place the numerous decorations you are able to place, in the locality of wherever your households actually are constructed. Whilst placing decorations next to households you'll observe a blue box round the actually decorations icon, and so as long as you make certain that households are inside this square you'll get bonus payout of gold coins when collecting rent.

There are two primary techniques that you are able to actually use to place households in Cityville, that will actually assist with positioning of decorations to bring in added gold coins in rent.

The first technique very much like businesses, is where you are able to place the households in a squared frame with an empty square space in the center for the decorations to be placed, I like to call this technique a Decorative Housing Square. This technique is a distinguished look for households that appear like a block of apartments or flats. If you take a look at the image above, you are able to acquire a more effective idea of what I mean and how you are able to actually place assorted decorations to earn bonus ratios for increased gold coins in rent.

Decorative Housing Row

The second technique is exclusively for people who want to place their households in neat and tidy rows, you merely place the households in a row normally one or two spaces apart, so you've adequate blank space down the sides to place decorations such as plants or trees and so on. I call this technique the Decorative Housing Row, and it's perfect for households that are single floor such as cottages or town houses.

In the image above you are able to see a good example of the kind of housing row layout you are able to produce, along with a few flowers as decorations down the sides. This layout looks neat and tidy, and make your city look a pleasant place to live in.

Double Decorative Housing Row

Another example of a housing row is to place two rows of housing either side with a space in the centre to strategically place decorations such as the Rocky Hill (currently 20% bonus payout each), which gives a combined bonus payout of 20 to 60% and is by far the most neat looking and best paying method in terms of a gold coin bonus payout.

You can see an example of this layout in the image above, I personally like to call this the Double Decorative Housing Row and as you can see the layout looks rather neat and looks natural, rather than just decoration stuffed like some housing layouts.

Business & Bonus Bar Gold Coin Earning 

The Bonus Bar Jackpot

Earning gold coins from your businesses on Cityville can be a long drawn out affair, especially if you arent prioritising your work load when you are actually playing the game. The best way to collect the revenue from your businesses, is to wait until all your businesses have the money sack icon over the top of them, meaning the gold coin revenue is ready to collect.

Wait until you have an adequate supply of energy to collect the revenue from all your businesses, then quickly left mouse click on each and every one of your businesses one after another, once finished start collecting all the gold coin, XP stars and special item icons, you will notice in the top right corner under your level bar, the bonus bar will be quickly filling up with extra gold coins.

Once you have finished collecting all the gold coin, XP stars and special item icons. The bonus bar will start to flash red and then disappear, telling you how much extra in gold coin bonus you have just earned.

Using Sidewalks To Connect To Roads 

Build housing or businesses away from roads

As anybody who plays Cityville knows that any Houses or Businesses you build within your city on Cityville, need to be connected to a road for you to be able to collect housing rent or business revenue. Well you can actually use the city sidewalk to connect houses or business to the roads around your city.

Why is this better? Well using city sidewalks to connect businesses or houses to roads, can give a big advantage in making lots of extra gold coins by the way you can place extra decorations around the businesses or houses, using sidewalks give a bigger space for you to place alot more decorations, therefore creating a lot more business revenue or housing rent for your citys budget.

Interactive Community Buildings 

Buildings that do more than collect rent

Zynga have recently include new interactive community buildings to Cityville for players to place within their Cities, these buildings are designed to add a bit more excitement to playing the game, by allowing players to interact with them by doing certain task with their neighbours which in turn will produce more gold coins, XP points, special items and more importantly gift special buildings.

Premium Goods Factory 

More from supplying your business with premium goods

The premium goods factory was the first interactive building to be created for Cityville by Zynga, and you can produce premium goods by employing your various neighbours as workers inside your factory. Dependant on the amount of premium goods per worker depends on the amount of hours or days you must wait to collect your premium goods. You will have to invite neighbours to work in your premium factory everytime you wish to produce premium goods, so you must remember to click on the premium goods factory and do this.

Once premium goods are ready to collect you will see a purple crate icon over the premium goods factory, clicking on the factory will cost 1 energy point and will pop up several purple premium goods crates for you to click on and collect. These will then go into the addition premium goods bar indicated by the purple fill bar at the top middle of the gaming screen.

Then the next time you click on a business that needs goods, before normal goods the premium goods will fill your empty businesses. The premium goods tend to bring in slightly more gold coins in business revenue and a better chance of more XP points and special collection items,

Upgradable Police Station 

Policeman who like donuts to catch criminals

To gain the special police station criminal catching mission, you first have to upgrade the standard police station to a level 2 police station by asking your neighbours for various police orientated special items. Once you have successfully upgraded your police station you are given two beat walking police officers who patrol your city ready to apprehend criminals. You must supply your policeman with lots and lots of donuts or your police officers will simply fall asleep. You can do this by clicking on the police station and then collecting on the police officer that is asleep, then a message will appear which is posted on your neighbours walls for you to obtain donuts.

Criminals seem to appear at random while you are normally collecting revenue from your businesses, you will hear a police siren when a criminal appears and you must click on the criminal to send out an awake police officer to apprehend them. Depending on the certain criminal that appears and you have captured, you are either awarded with special gems worth certain gold coins or you get to unlock special buildings.

There are now six levels to the police station and to unlock the higher level buildings you must apprehend a particular amount of criminals. The more upgraded police stations give you a new look to your police station and more police officers with a police car, police van or police helicopter, and then you have the opportunity of apprehending other types of criminals for more unlockable special buildings.

Again keep begging for donuts to keep those police officers awake, or you will not be able to capture those pesky criminals.

What To Try With Your Cityville City Next 

Ideas for playing Cityville in the future

There is going to be a day when you reach and surpass level 60, and you have unlocked most of the houses, decorations and businesses and have also completed most of the job quests given you to complete in the Cityville game.

Now is probably the best time to think about how you are going to continue playing Cityville. One of the current strategies I am using in the game right now, is turning my city into a goods producing capital.

Start off by building a farming community, simply place several storage building within your city, use either the barn or the sticks storage building and make sure the overall city storage capacity of your city is over 3000. Then place lots of farming squares and plant the pea crop which produces 155 goods every 3 days, make sure you don't go over you cities overall capacity when planting crops (e.g around 19 pea crops squares for a 3000 overall city storage capacity).

While waiting for your crops to be ready for harvesting, another good idea is to place several piers along your city's coastline, which incidentally add 420 storage capacity per pier to your overall city storage capacity. Then simply place 5 cargo ships around each pier, and then send them out to Rome Relics which will bring back 194 goods every 3 days. Place some more storage buildings if necessary, so you don't run out of storage space when collecting the goods cargo in 3 days.

When your pea crops are ready for harvesting and your cargo ships have returned and are ready for unloading, make sure you have enough energy and then start harvesting every pea crop and unloading the goods from every cargo ship. Once you have done this you can click on the train station and the click on the sell tab and sell the surplus goods to your Cityville neighbours by sending your goods train. Always make sure you don't neglect the businesses in your city and have enough goods to supply them at least once.

Doing this once every 3 days will earn you lots and lots of extra gold coins, xp points and special items and with the extra boost to your city's gold coin budget, you will be able to finally buy those much sort after high tower businesses and landmarks.

Common Questions About Playing Cityville 

Your Cityville Questions Answered

There are many questions on how to play the popular Cityville social game, and here is where I try and answer the most popular asked Cityville questions from the millions of city builders out there.

• 1
  How Do I Get A Business HQ?
  
  This is the most asked Cityville playing question, and I can't believe people are still having trouble obtaining the business HQ.
  
  Obtaining the Business HQ was a job quests that was given in the earlier levels of Cityville, where you had to build a brand new business (for example the Burger Joint)in Samantha's city who is incidentally the computer generated neighbour in the Cityville game, completing this job quest opened your first ever business franchise and made the Business HQ available in your inventory for you to place within your own city.
  
  You are then able to add more businesses (for example the Burger Joint) to this franchise by clicking on the franchise button in the options, then simply click add and place a business (a Burger Joint or whatever business you chose) in an empty business space within one of your neighbours city.
  
  If your generous neighbour then approves the construction of this new business within their city, it will usually result in an extra floor being added to your Business HQ that you have placed in your city. You will then be able to collect bonus gold coins from each business every 24 hours and you will also be required to supply these businesses with a set amount of goods as well.
  
  To obtain additional Business HQ buildings, you will need to advance in Cityville levels which will unlock the ability to add additional business franchises, and then simply adding a different kind of business within one of your neighbours cities will add another Business HQ in your inventory for you to place with in your city.
• 2
  Why do my Citizens need to be happy?
  
  There is a lot of speculation about the effects of your citizens moods have upon your city, the citizens mood fluctuates depending on how much room is left in your city for population growth. If you have a half full city population limit, say 500 of out of 1000 population your citizens would be happy because there's room for more people to move into the city. But if you have a nearly full city population limit, say 900 out of 1000 population then your citizens would be unhappy because there isn't enough room for more people to move into the city.
  
  It's not yet known what effect having unhappy citizens as opposed to happy citizens has on your city, but one thought is that unhappy citizens tend to stay in doors and not come out into the city and visit business and tends to make the time in which businesses are ready for profits to be collected a lot longer.
• 3
  What's the best way to use Coastal Piers in Cityville?
  
  Piers in Cityville are usually placed on the coastline and are another way of importing goods into your city. Each pier costs 5000 gold coins to build and are a cheap way of adding 420 goods capacity to your city.
  
  You can successfully place five cargo ships around each pier, each of these will set you back a measly 100 gold coins so are very cheap. The best way to utilise cargo ships is to send them out to New York novelties, which costs 79 gold coins and makes 112 goods every 18 hours.
  
  It is best to send the cargo ships out like this every 18 hours, because if you select a port with a shorter journey time and you don't play the game more than once a day you may come back and discover the cargo has been destroyed and you will need to waste energy cleaning the cargo ships.
  
  Doing this once a day will greatly help with bringing in goods to supply your businesses, and you can even sell the surplus goods via the freight train by selling them to Charlieville and make a nice sum of gold coins.
• 4
  What are the best businesses to own in Cityville?
  
  There are many businesses in Cityville ranging from the corner store right up to the expensive Tower Eats. However there are only a few businesses in Cityville that actually give decent amounts of gold coins or decent Collection rewards for completing their special collections.
  
  The two best businesses to have more than one of in your Cityville city with regards to earning more energy and experience points are the corner store which rewards a healthy three energy and three experience points for completing the convenience store collection and the tavern and also the pool hall which also reward three energy and three experience points for completing the watering hole collection,
  
  For gaining some much needed extra gold coins the best businesses to own more than one of is the furniture store which rewards 3000 in gold for completing the home furnishing collection, the music store which rewards 3000 in gold for completing the home entertainment collection and the jewelry store which also rewards 3000 in gold for completing the bling collection.
  
  Incidentally to gain a corner store you must plant and harvest the pea crops and complete the pea collection, to obtain the tavern you must build upscale housing or hotel suites and collect rent to complete the downtown collection.
  
  To unlock the music store you need a population of 7500 and to unlock the furniture store you must have a population of over 6500 and finally to unlock the jewelry store you need to be at level 60 and above.
  
  Just by incorporating 2 or 3 of these businesses into your city and completing their corresponding special collections, will generate lots of gold coins for you to purchase more housing, businesses, decorations and further expansion to your city.
  
  And more importantly the businesses will help you earn enough energy for performing tasks within your city and a nice supply of experience points to help with your gaining of Cityville levels.
• 5
  How do i use the Zoning Permits and where can i get more?
  
  Land expansion is the only way you can expand your city within Cityville itself, what you need to be able to afford land expansion is enough gold coins and the zoning permits.
  
  The best way to get zoning permits is to ask your Cityville neighbours either by posting requests to their wall or by sending them zoning permits in the free gifts option in the Cityville game. Sending zoning permits to your friends via the free gift option, will hopefully make your nice Cityville neighbours send you some much needed zoning permits in return.
  
  You can also add the zoning permit to your wish list, and post a personal request to your wall every day for your friends to see, again this depends on how nice your neighbours are to whether you will receive any.
  
  With every land expansion the cost of expanding your city increases, your first land expansion may only cost 10,000 gold coins but as you add more land to your city, the cost in gold coins increases dramatically to over a million, so earning enough gold coins is essential to your future city expansion.
  
  However no matter how many times you add more land to your city, the amount of zoning permits needed still stays at the 20 zoning permits mark for expansion. So make sure you spend quite a bit of time posting requests to your friends walls and also sending out zoning permits via the free gifts option every time you play Cityville, or you may find yourself coming up short with the necessary items to successfully expand your city into new land.